Plus Kelela has Solange on her side, a person whom I think will make sure Kelela is able to release the music she wants to and one who we all know has connections.
BLACK GIRL DEBUT MAGIC™ - WINNER
- Thread starter Mr.Arroz
- Start date
Agreed - I think that both landing in the Top 5 of almost every "Best Albums Of 2017" list (with one or the other claiming the win each time) secures their future.
Reminiscent of Solange and Beyonce in 2016, actually...
SZA's success was down to a number of factors but ultimately it boils down to right place, right time. She's had buzz and been around for years but the RCA signing and the Kendrick/TDE backing meant certain things were finally within reach. Such as strong Urban radio support, they really rallied around Love Galore long before anyone else caught on. I think she resonated with people to (specifically Black women) in a similar way that Solange did with her most recent album. Like people really identified with CTRL, it's so highly personal - at times like reading diary entries. Expressing her insecurities with where her life is going, to her weight, to her man, her confidence. Issue that are relevant to 20 somethings and beyond. Most importantly though, the album is really fucking good. None of the other stuff could've came without the strength of the material. Ms Solána did that.
Kelela has huge critical acclaim that'll be enough to sustain an era where we'll see her tour throughout the year and be attached to most major festivals. She doesn't have the industry backing or support like SZA does, which counts for a lot. I don't think this time around we'll see her blow up. I don't see her as that type of artist though, she comes across as very private and intimate person. I wouldn't be surprised if she disappears for a few years after this to work on the follow up.
Santi will always be a bloggers favourite, even 99 Cents was still warmly reviewed and I love most of it. Everything about her is way too unique to be a success, from the visuals, to her voice, to the way she choses to present herself. I seem to remember her recent Ellen performance going over most people's heads.. annoyingly. Her debut being the huge indie success that it was will mean she'll always have support in some capacity. Her and Kelis strike me as similar people in the way they've both been in the industry for a long ass time (Santi used to be an A&R woman for Epic in the early 00's) and can't be bothered with bullshit that comes with it. They show up every 4-5 years, put out a brilliant record and go back to living a normal life with their families, children, partners and friends. That's why I like them so much.
Tinashe is one of the more frustrating cases because lord knows the woman is insanely talented, has bags of potential and is extremely versatile. She writes, produces, dances, sings, serves looks, confidence, stage presence.. it's been sad to see the door slam shut in her face so many times over the last three years. Especially when you know how hard she works behind the scenes. For whatever reason, I don't see her ever crossing over. Maybe I'm scarred by how hard the last three years have been but I don't see "it" happening unless radical changes are made such as new label, manager, team etc. Fortunately, Joyride seems upon us and I have no doubt it'll be phenomenal, acclaimed and worth the wait. No one deserves a shot more than Tinashe, someone make that girls dreams come true already.
Azealia's a unique situation because she had a meteoric rise to success all on her own. No backing, no label, no manager, no co-sign, nothing. 212 was a rare viral sensation. Whilst we all can acknowledge she probably wasn't the easiest person to work with, everything that happened in her early career she made for herself. Music videos she paid for, Fantasea mixtape was arranged without the labels knowledge, the tours were all her doing. Industry people wanted to push her through a door that many other women had walked through before her but Azealia created her own. Her look, her sound, her bars, her style, there was no one like Azealia Banks. The problem was no one knew what to do with her, the hype 212 had built died the day Yung Rapunxel hit the airwaves and the trauma she experienced in her past began to effect her mental health. Everyone knows the story after that. Atleast it looks like she's in the best place she's ever been and hopefully she really does get Fantasea II out in March because the little corner she made for herself in the realm of hip-hop and female rap is much needed.
Kelela has huge critical acclaim that'll be enough to sustain an era where we'll see her tour throughout the year and be attached to most major festivals. She doesn't have the industry backing or support like SZA does, which counts for a lot. I don't think this time around we'll see her blow up. I don't see her as that type of artist though, she comes across as very private and intimate person. I wouldn't be surprised if she disappears for a few years after this to work on the follow up.
Santi will always be a bloggers favourite, even 99 Cents was still warmly reviewed and I love most of it. Everything about her is way too unique to be a success, from the visuals, to her voice, to the way she choses to present herself. I seem to remember her recent Ellen performance going over most people's heads.. annoyingly. Her debut being the huge indie success that it was will mean she'll always have support in some capacity. Her and Kelis strike me as similar people in the way they've both been in the industry for a long ass time (Santi used to be an A&R woman for Epic in the early 00's) and can't be bothered with bullshit that comes with it. They show up every 4-5 years, put out a brilliant record and go back to living a normal life with their families, children, partners and friends. That's why I like them so much.
Tinashe is one of the more frustrating cases because lord knows the woman is insanely talented, has bags of potential and is extremely versatile. She writes, produces, dances, sings, serves looks, confidence, stage presence.. it's been sad to see the door slam shut in her face so many times over the last three years. Especially when you know how hard she works behind the scenes. For whatever reason, I don't see her ever crossing over. Maybe I'm scarred by how hard the last three years have been but I don't see "it" happening unless radical changes are made such as new label, manager, team etc. Fortunately, Joyride seems upon us and I have no doubt it'll be phenomenal, acclaimed and worth the wait. No one deserves a shot more than Tinashe, someone make that girls dreams come true already.
Azealia's a unique situation because she had a meteoric rise to success all on her own. No backing, no label, no manager, no co-sign, nothing. 212 was a rare viral sensation. Whilst we all can acknowledge she probably wasn't the easiest person to work with, everything that happened in her early career she made for herself. Music videos she paid for, Fantasea mixtape was arranged without the labels knowledge, the tours were all her doing. Industry people wanted to push her through a door that many other women had walked through before her but Azealia created her own. Her look, her sound, her bars, her style, there was no one like Azealia Banks. The problem was no one knew what to do with her, the hype 212 had built died the day Yung Rapunxel hit the airwaves and the trauma she experienced in her past began to effect her mental health. Everyone knows the story after that. Atleast it looks like she's in the best place she's ever been and hopefully she really does get Fantasea II out in March because the little corner she made for herself in the realm of hip-hop and female rap is much needed.
Post of the year and we're only in January? I feel spoilt...
We'll probably end up rating 2 albums, a mixtape, an EP and a few buzz singles but I'm still here for that.
Mr.Arroz
Staff member
he/him/his
#2
Azealia Banks
Broke with Expensive Taste
Album Average
8.534
Our final statistics for Broke with Expensive Taste:
Highest average: 9.625 (@He)
Lowest average: 6.438 (@Trouble in Paradise)
My average: 9.219
Top 5:
1. @He - 9.625
2. @soratami - 9.438
3. @Solenciennes - 9.406
4. @Sanctuary - 9.375
5. @constantino - 9.313
Bottom 5:
1. @Trouble in Paradise - 6.438
2. @ufint - 7.031
3. @A&E - 7.657
4. @CorgiCorgiCorgi - 7.813
5. @TRAVVV / @Sprockrooster - 7.875
Summary:
Where do I begin that doesn’t leave me as sensitive as the write-up for “212”, our winning song? Azealia Banks is probably the most polarizing figure in modern-day pop music, likely beating out even Kanye West himself - while simultaneously being one of the freshest, most talented artists to grace the industry since her rise to fame in 2011. And despite probably being my favorite woman in this entire rate, I won’t shy away from the multitude of controversies that have defined her career, and led to where she currently sits musically and artistically. It’s probably the most dynamic story that I have to tell here.
Azealia Amanda Banks was born in late May 1991 in NYC, later raised by a single mother with two older sisters in Harlem - a household that she has later described as abusive - both physically and verbally. She attended LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts at 16 - the same school that once opened its doors to Liza Minelli, Nicki Minaj, Robert De Niro, and a host of others - before releasing her first song, “Gimme a Chance” (its earlist incarnation) on MySpace in November 2008, as Miss Bank$ (after signing with an agent and a period of unsuccessful television show auditions). It was during this period that Azealia states that she would “[message] Diplo every day for two months” until he finally paid her mind and declared an intention to sign her, before XL Recordings snapped her up instead. Next began nearly a year of quiet for Azealia, who received little mentorship and development as an artist. Shortly thereafter, she was off XL and back on her own, this time using her birth name as the name that she would use for later and present releases.
After leaving XL in London and returning to North America, Azealia spent time in Montreal, utilizing Youtube to share her demos, which included “L8R”, and “Slow Hands” (some of the first tracks that I heard from her after her debut single). When her Canadian visa expired, she made her back to New York City, eventually working as a stripper in Queens to make sure her bills were paid - described by Azealia as a low point herself, though it only lasted two weeks, as it was then that another one of her uploaded tracks would later explode in the music scene, and take her on the path that she’s currently traveling now.
In September 2011, “212” was released as a free download from website, eventually finding its way throughout the ’Net, blowing up in what seemingly felt like an overnight phenomenon; the song would officially be released digitally three months later, the same month where it was announced that she’d be on “Shady Love”, a track from the then-upcoming LP from the Scissor Sisters. More tracks would pop up in the following months, including “Bambi”, and “NEEDSSUMLUV (SXLND)”, as well as reports that she was working closely with Paul Epworth on her debut, as well as spending time with Thierry Mugler and other prominent names in the fashion world. Things were quickly reversing themselves for Azealia, and public desire for a long-form release was building day by day.
2012 would bring two major releases from Azealia - first, the 1991 EP in late May, affectionately titled for her birth date. Featuring four tracks (including “212”), it was released to widespread critical acclaim, racking up a score of 84 from Metacritic, with visuals prepped for each of its songs:
Next came the Fantasea mixtape, originally titled FANTASTIC, officially landing on July 11, 2012, after slight upload issues on Azealia’s end (y'all remember that?!). Preceded by four of its tracks being released on Soundcloud (“Jumanji, “Aquababe”, “Nathan”, and “Neptune”), Fantasea (while a mixtape), was the world’s first taste of Azealia’s talent in a long-play format - sitting at 19 tracks long. It also housed what was to be a new single release, “Esta Noche”, produced by Munchi, but later cancelled due to producer interference over its sample. I remember JAMMING to the mixtape that summer, the year after college graduation, and finally landing my first professional office job and my own apartment. It seemed like Azealia was on the right path with her career, something I felt we somehow had in common. But it really wasn’t long after she debuted that the world got a huge taste of the other side of Azealia, outside of her music, behavior heavily influenced by the loss of her father at two, the abusive household maintained by her mother, as well as existing in a world built upon and sustained by misogynoir. In waiting for her debut album, which would finally find its way online in late 2014, over three years after the release of “2012”, Azealia’s trajectory as an artist would include festivals, fashion shows, music videos, music eeking out here, but also - mad beefs, in a way that was funny at first, but would quickly became almost completely self-destructive.
Some summaries:
http://www.complex.com/music/2014/06/a-history-of-azealia-banks-twitter-beefs/banks-vs-lady-gaga
http://fasterlouder.junkee.com/an-a-z-of-azealia-banks-best-beefs/844419
http://www.mtv.com/news/1699732/azealia-banks-beef-history/
And in a period where music was ultimately considered to be a GODSEND, it’s hard for me to even trace a solid timeline on all the shit that she got herself involved in. If any of you participants would like to give it a try, be my welcome guest...you won’t be getting it from me! In any case tho, after “212”, Azealia became much more known for her beefs than her beats, and 2012-basically now was littered with moments of sheer messiness and lowkey embarrassment. But as a stan, I hung on, because I believed in her talent, but also because, in many ways, I saw much of the struggle that many of the women in my life endured, and I knew there was more to the story than how others would prefer to interpret it to me. I vowed to stick by her, because her music has always been high-quality, but her story was also compelling. And the forthcoming music would only prove me right.
2013 brought tracks meant for Broke with Expensive Taste, including “Yung Rapunxel” and “ATM Jam”, which later was shelved from the LP (thank GOD). 2014 itself was the major turning point, as BWET was finally released November after Azealia parted ways with UMG with the full masters/rights to her work made with them. Broke with Expensive Taste was suprise-released on November 7th, 2014, almost three years from the release of “212”, which made its tracklist as its fifth track. After that came her Hot 97 interview, which went nearly as viral as “212” back in 2011:
An interview that I think, for many people, served as a turning point with Azealia - whether for good or bad, even for those that had stuck by her after her previous beefs. Offering her thoughts on the industry, her space within it, as well as overall society and its handling of race in modern-day times, Azealia was equally upbeat and comical as she was explosively intimate and open with her emotions to much of her time in the limelight.
And so many of the rest of the industry and those watching it had their own words too:
and even more:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...a-azealia-banks-hip-hop-appropriation-problem
https://jezebel.com/azealia-banks-explains-her-iggy-beef-in-this-sad-fascin-1672876094
And I guess that’s where this summary/write-up then becomes a bit less linear than it's been with the other final summaries here (I will of course do my best to bring us back up to 2018 in a moment). Azealia for me, perhaps maybe as much as only Kelela here too, has the most shades of me within her, or maybe I mean that the other way around…? On Popjustice, in ways that I’ve come to notice myself over the years, and as many of you also already know… I’m not afraid to speak my mind and call something out on sight - or, as one of my PJ IRL friends says, “give the girls fever”. I’ve slowly learned to be a bit more measured in my responses, but a need to give voice to plenty of the things that should be discussed, but instead are brushed over or whispered for fear of disturbing the expected or the status quo, has always re-informed my approach to communicating with others. Sometimes it’s about cutting the bullshit and foregoing the niceties, two strategies that I wholeheartedly support still now, which I highly doubt will change as I grow older. Much of my reasoning for building this rate and going through all the energy that it required was because of Azealia, and specifically the story that she first hinted at, and then fully disclosed with “Soda”. Like I mentioned in the introduction to the rate on page one:
"As a young bisexual man, raised among seven siblings in a hugely diverse family (Puerto Rican, Black, Choctaw, Indian, Mexican, of varying religious and linguistic backgrounds), whose formative years were spent with Black aunts, grandmothers, cousins, and most importantly, his Black mother, most of my journey in music has begun, and persisted with - the presence of Black women."
Growing up, I watched many moments that many of these women, often raising us as single mothers, had to put up with, and in them, it was almost impossible to not draw lines to the struggles that Azealia has mentioned in “Soda” and other spaces. As Malcolm X once famously stated:
Which demonstrates the crux of this rate, of the experience of Black women, of misogynoir itself. Black women exist at the intersection of two incredibly oppressive social constructs: race, and gender. In a world intoxicated with male and white privilege, driven by the concepts of sexism and white supremacy, women of color, but specifically Black women stand at the crossing of two incredibly unfortunate burdens. And it’s the manifestation of that hybrid system, misogynoir, which unfortunately has been present in all of the dealings, professionally and personally, that Azealia has been involved in since her debut, but especially within some of her more extreme moments since her album’s release.
She appeared in Playboy in early 2015, and it was later announced in May that she would make her acting debut in RZA’s Coco, which was re-titled Love Beats Rhymes upon its release in late 2017. 2015 also brought incidents on a Delta flight in Los Angeles; Azealia ending up under investigation by that city’s police department; and an arrest in NYC after a scuffle with a female security guard. 2016 however, would prove to much worse: there was a run-in with Sarah Palin, an online feud with 14 year-old actress Skai Jackson, an endorsement of Trump (which she would later retract) and racially-fucked up comments about Zayn Malik. Her Twitter was suspended, and her appearance at a music festival was cancelled (I'm sure there's more that I'm blanking on). But of all events, it would be the one with RZA and Russell Crowe that would make the largest mark, following Azealia into 2017, which you can read a bit of below. I’m too exhausted to re-run how painful that time was for AZ:
http://www.thefader.com/2017/10/18/rza-russell-crowe-spat-at-azealia-banks-interview
https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/rza-finally-admits-russell-crowe-did-spat-on-azealia-ba-1819654613
But ultimately time would reveal that Azealia’s side of the story had maintained itself, never faltering or changing in its time in the media. And it’s only my imagination that can offer me any understanding of how heavy and hurt that how ordeal must have left her. Having openly documented her relationship with mental health, specifically bi-polar disorder, and her interactions with treatment, the incident RZA as well as her other pitfalls in 2016, and the media’s pushback as well as silencing of her claims, were all emblematic of the reality that misogynoir creates for Black women, but specifically Azealia in the narrative here. Shit was fucking harrowing, speaking as someone only watching from afar. In any case, however, more of 2017 seemed to be on the up and up for her finally again:
Azealia would release music in 2017, some of the first since it was revealed during 2015 that she was unable to do so until March 2016. That month brought a mixtape named Slay-Z, which was released to mixed reviews. “Chi Chi” followed in June 2017, as well as “Escapades”, which was set to lead her follow-up to her first mixtape, titled Fantasea II: The Second Wave, which is now promised for a 2018 release. Slay-Z was re-released to digital music stores in July. Late 2017 then offered perhaps the biggest turn since the darker days of 2015/2016:
Azealia returned to touring, finally, allowing me being able to see her live after six whole years of stanning. Love Beats Rhymes was also finally released, with a variety of reviews remarking on Azealia’s performance, seen by many as its strongest element. (ddddd I’m lowkey tired of writing at this point, but let me carry on…) “Icy Colors Change”, a holiday demo was released to Soundcloud, and Azealia openly went around the industry, attempting to make amends for many of the beefs and run-in’s of her past. Her career may never be at the heights of her “212” fame again, but as of January 2018, she’s hustled so much in these last few months to re-direct so much of the pain and hurt that she’s experienced in her brief six + years as a celebrity and a musician in the spotlight.
I think what I most admire about Azealia is her perseverance; her drive, too. Music runs through her veins, but aside from that - she’s a natural star and a masterful creative force. Her collisions with misogynoir, mental health, as well as her natural desire to “pop off”, for lack of a better phrase, makes her fascinating to me, but also someone who I feel for - someone endearing beyond belief. As an HIV case manager (one of my current positions), we’re meant to look at people where they are - not where they’ve been (and getting back there), or some fantasy idea of who/where we think they should be. Our work is people-centered, and engaging every part of someone’s being is how we build our relationships, realizing that others’ ambitions, desires, and priorities can all differ. This is the lens that I’ve always viewed Azealia through - though long before I began that work in mid-2014, perhaps informed by my relationships with people I’ve seen struggle with a barrage of their own burdens in my personal life, while also having to balance being my own person getting through this world. Being human isn’t easy; living with stigmas isn’t easy; being demonized before you’re even born for who you don’t even know that you’re going to be is fucking hard, too. That’s the world Azealia’s had to live in - alongside the crossing of all those facets of her life, her personality, her past - all while in the public eye. She’s gone from someone who was literally wide-eyed, razor-sharp intense at 19/20 when she began, to now someone at 26 trying their best to confront their own pains and baggage, while pushing their world further ahead. Azealia now today, to me, is someone trying their hardest in earnest to be poised, patient, (though still a bit quick-tongued), and better at managing all of the things buzzing around her. At some point, if we get new music, great. But until then I want her to be safe, stay safe, and to continue to focus on rebuilding herself. For all intents and purposes, that seems to be the trajectory for now, and for that, I’m glad; I’ve already gotten one of the most brilliant debut albums of all time.
Going forward... I don’t know what the future holds for Azealia, and I’ve learned it’s best to have few expectations at times; maybe even fewer hopes. All I know is that in many ways, she’s won. Things could have taken a much different form after 2016, but in her own fashion, she’s begun down the path to ensuring that the opposite becomes her truth. She’s signed a new record deal already a month into 2018, and has teased the final video (!!!!!!) for “Soda” just today:
So hopefully this is only the start of things to come. No matter what though, I’ll be standing by, ever eager, and dedicated to digesting all that she has to offer. I smile thinking of who Azealia is now, and I get a little nostalgic and warm thinking of where she can and will go. We really don’t deserve all that she is, but I’m lucky to have her all the same. She's quite possibly everything to me.
May she receive all the good that’s ever meant for her.
xoxo
@Mr.Arroz
Azealia Banks
Broke with Expensive Taste
Album Average
8.534
Our final statistics for Broke with Expensive Taste:
Highest average: 9.625 (@He)
Lowest average: 6.438 (@Trouble in Paradise)
My average: 9.219
Top 5:
1. @He - 9.625
2. @soratami - 9.438
3. @Solenciennes - 9.406
4. @Sanctuary - 9.375
5. @constantino - 9.313
Bottom 5:
1. @Trouble in Paradise - 6.438
2. @ufint - 7.031
3. @A&E - 7.657
4. @CorgiCorgiCorgi - 7.813
5. @TRAVVV / @Sprockrooster - 7.875
Summary:
Where do I begin that doesn’t leave me as sensitive as the write-up for “212”, our winning song? Azealia Banks is probably the most polarizing figure in modern-day pop music, likely beating out even Kanye West himself - while simultaneously being one of the freshest, most talented artists to grace the industry since her rise to fame in 2011. And despite probably being my favorite woman in this entire rate, I won’t shy away from the multitude of controversies that have defined her career, and led to where she currently sits musically and artistically. It’s probably the most dynamic story that I have to tell here.
Azealia Amanda Banks was born in late May 1991 in NYC, later raised by a single mother with two older sisters in Harlem - a household that she has later described as abusive - both physically and verbally. She attended LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts at 16 - the same school that once opened its doors to Liza Minelli, Nicki Minaj, Robert De Niro, and a host of others - before releasing her first song, “Gimme a Chance” (its earlist incarnation) on MySpace in November 2008, as Miss Bank$ (after signing with an agent and a period of unsuccessful television show auditions). It was during this period that Azealia states that she would “[message] Diplo every day for two months” until he finally paid her mind and declared an intention to sign her, before XL Recordings snapped her up instead. Next began nearly a year of quiet for Azealia, who received little mentorship and development as an artist. Shortly thereafter, she was off XL and back on her own, this time using her birth name as the name that she would use for later and present releases.
After leaving XL in London and returning to North America, Azealia spent time in Montreal, utilizing Youtube to share her demos, which included “L8R”, and “Slow Hands” (some of the first tracks that I heard from her after her debut single). When her Canadian visa expired, she made her back to New York City, eventually working as a stripper in Queens to make sure her bills were paid - described by Azealia as a low point herself, though it only lasted two weeks, as it was then that another one of her uploaded tracks would later explode in the music scene, and take her on the path that she’s currently traveling now.
In September 2011, “212” was released as a free download from website, eventually finding its way throughout the ’Net, blowing up in what seemingly felt like an overnight phenomenon; the song would officially be released digitally three months later, the same month where it was announced that she’d be on “Shady Love”, a track from the then-upcoming LP from the Scissor Sisters. More tracks would pop up in the following months, including “Bambi”, and “NEEDSSUMLUV (SXLND)”, as well as reports that she was working closely with Paul Epworth on her debut, as well as spending time with Thierry Mugler and other prominent names in the fashion world. Things were quickly reversing themselves for Azealia, and public desire for a long-form release was building day by day.
2012 would bring two major releases from Azealia - first, the 1991 EP in late May, affectionately titled for her birth date. Featuring four tracks (including “212”), it was released to widespread critical acclaim, racking up a score of 84 from Metacritic, with visuals prepped for each of its songs:
Next came the Fantasea mixtape, originally titled FANTASTIC, officially landing on July 11, 2012, after slight upload issues on Azealia’s end (y'all remember that?!). Preceded by four of its tracks being released on Soundcloud (“Jumanji, “Aquababe”, “Nathan”, and “Neptune”), Fantasea (while a mixtape), was the world’s first taste of Azealia’s talent in a long-play format - sitting at 19 tracks long. It also housed what was to be a new single release, “Esta Noche”, produced by Munchi, but later cancelled due to producer interference over its sample. I remember JAMMING to the mixtape that summer, the year after college graduation, and finally landing my first professional office job and my own apartment. It seemed like Azealia was on the right path with her career, something I felt we somehow had in common. But it really wasn’t long after she debuted that the world got a huge taste of the other side of Azealia, outside of her music, behavior heavily influenced by the loss of her father at two, the abusive household maintained by her mother, as well as existing in a world built upon and sustained by misogynoir. In waiting for her debut album, which would finally find its way online in late 2014, over three years after the release of “2012”, Azealia’s trajectory as an artist would include festivals, fashion shows, music videos, music eeking out here, but also - mad beefs, in a way that was funny at first, but would quickly became almost completely self-destructive.
Some summaries:
http://www.complex.com/music/2014/06/a-history-of-azealia-banks-twitter-beefs/banks-vs-lady-gaga
http://fasterlouder.junkee.com/an-a-z-of-azealia-banks-best-beefs/844419
http://www.mtv.com/news/1699732/azealia-banks-beef-history/
And in a period where music was ultimately considered to be a GODSEND, it’s hard for me to even trace a solid timeline on all the shit that she got herself involved in. If any of you participants would like to give it a try, be my welcome guest...you won’t be getting it from me! In any case tho, after “212”, Azealia became much more known for her beefs than her beats, and 2012-basically now was littered with moments of sheer messiness and lowkey embarrassment. But as a stan, I hung on, because I believed in her talent, but also because, in many ways, I saw much of the struggle that many of the women in my life endured, and I knew there was more to the story than how others would prefer to interpret it to me. I vowed to stick by her, because her music has always been high-quality, but her story was also compelling. And the forthcoming music would only prove me right.
2013 brought tracks meant for Broke with Expensive Taste, including “Yung Rapunxel” and “ATM Jam”, which later was shelved from the LP (thank GOD). 2014 itself was the major turning point, as BWET was finally released November after Azealia parted ways with UMG with the full masters/rights to her work made with them. Broke with Expensive Taste was suprise-released on November 7th, 2014, almost three years from the release of “212”, which made its tracklist as its fifth track. After that came her Hot 97 interview, which went nearly as viral as “212” back in 2011:
An interview that I think, for many people, served as a turning point with Azealia - whether for good or bad, even for those that had stuck by her after her previous beefs. Offering her thoughts on the industry, her space within it, as well as overall society and its handling of race in modern-day times, Azealia was equally upbeat and comical as she was explosively intimate and open with her emotions to much of her time in the limelight.
And so many of the rest of the industry and those watching it had their own words too:
and even more:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...a-azealia-banks-hip-hop-appropriation-problem
https://jezebel.com/azealia-banks-explains-her-iggy-beef-in-this-sad-fascin-1672876094
And I guess that’s where this summary/write-up then becomes a bit less linear than it's been with the other final summaries here (I will of course do my best to bring us back up to 2018 in a moment). Azealia for me, perhaps maybe as much as only Kelela here too, has the most shades of me within her, or maybe I mean that the other way around…? On Popjustice, in ways that I’ve come to notice myself over the years, and as many of you also already know… I’m not afraid to speak my mind and call something out on sight - or, as one of my PJ IRL friends says, “give the girls fever”. I’ve slowly learned to be a bit more measured in my responses, but a need to give voice to plenty of the things that should be discussed, but instead are brushed over or whispered for fear of disturbing the expected or the status quo, has always re-informed my approach to communicating with others. Sometimes it’s about cutting the bullshit and foregoing the niceties, two strategies that I wholeheartedly support still now, which I highly doubt will change as I grow older. Much of my reasoning for building this rate and going through all the energy that it required was because of Azealia, and specifically the story that she first hinted at, and then fully disclosed with “Soda”. Like I mentioned in the introduction to the rate on page one:
"As a young bisexual man, raised among seven siblings in a hugely diverse family (Puerto Rican, Black, Choctaw, Indian, Mexican, of varying religious and linguistic backgrounds), whose formative years were spent with Black aunts, grandmothers, cousins, and most importantly, his Black mother, most of my journey in music has begun, and persisted with - the presence of Black women."
Growing up, I watched many moments that many of these women, often raising us as single mothers, had to put up with, and in them, it was almost impossible to not draw lines to the struggles that Azealia has mentioned in “Soda” and other spaces. As Malcolm X once famously stated:
Which demonstrates the crux of this rate, of the experience of Black women, of misogynoir itself. Black women exist at the intersection of two incredibly oppressive social constructs: race, and gender. In a world intoxicated with male and white privilege, driven by the concepts of sexism and white supremacy, women of color, but specifically Black women stand at the crossing of two incredibly unfortunate burdens. And it’s the manifestation of that hybrid system, misogynoir, which unfortunately has been present in all of the dealings, professionally and personally, that Azealia has been involved in since her debut, but especially within some of her more extreme moments since her album’s release.
She appeared in Playboy in early 2015, and it was later announced in May that she would make her acting debut in RZA’s Coco, which was re-titled Love Beats Rhymes upon its release in late 2017. 2015 also brought incidents on a Delta flight in Los Angeles; Azealia ending up under investigation by that city’s police department; and an arrest in NYC after a scuffle with a female security guard. 2016 however, would prove to much worse: there was a run-in with Sarah Palin, an online feud with 14 year-old actress Skai Jackson, an endorsement of Trump (which she would later retract) and racially-fucked up comments about Zayn Malik. Her Twitter was suspended, and her appearance at a music festival was cancelled (I'm sure there's more that I'm blanking on). But of all events, it would be the one with RZA and Russell Crowe that would make the largest mark, following Azealia into 2017, which you can read a bit of below. I’m too exhausted to re-run how painful that time was for AZ:
http://www.thefader.com/2017/10/18/rza-russell-crowe-spat-at-azealia-banks-interview
https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/rza-finally-admits-russell-crowe-did-spat-on-azealia-ba-1819654613
But ultimately time would reveal that Azealia’s side of the story had maintained itself, never faltering or changing in its time in the media. And it’s only my imagination that can offer me any understanding of how heavy and hurt that how ordeal must have left her. Having openly documented her relationship with mental health, specifically bi-polar disorder, and her interactions with treatment, the incident RZA as well as her other pitfalls in 2016, and the media’s pushback as well as silencing of her claims, were all emblematic of the reality that misogynoir creates for Black women, but specifically Azealia in the narrative here. Shit was fucking harrowing, speaking as someone only watching from afar. In any case, however, more of 2017 seemed to be on the up and up for her finally again:
Azealia would release music in 2017, some of the first since it was revealed during 2015 that she was unable to do so until March 2016. That month brought a mixtape named Slay-Z, which was released to mixed reviews. “Chi Chi” followed in June 2017, as well as “Escapades”, which was set to lead her follow-up to her first mixtape, titled Fantasea II: The Second Wave, which is now promised for a 2018 release. Slay-Z was re-released to digital music stores in July. Late 2017 then offered perhaps the biggest turn since the darker days of 2015/2016:
Azealia returned to touring, finally, allowing me being able to see her live after six whole years of stanning. Love Beats Rhymes was also finally released, with a variety of reviews remarking on Azealia’s performance, seen by many as its strongest element. (ddddd I’m lowkey tired of writing at this point, but let me carry on…) “Icy Colors Change”, a holiday demo was released to Soundcloud, and Azealia openly went around the industry, attempting to make amends for many of the beefs and run-in’s of her past. Her career may never be at the heights of her “212” fame again, but as of January 2018, she’s hustled so much in these last few months to re-direct so much of the pain and hurt that she’s experienced in her brief six + years as a celebrity and a musician in the spotlight.
I think what I most admire about Azealia is her perseverance; her drive, too. Music runs through her veins, but aside from that - she’s a natural star and a masterful creative force. Her collisions with misogynoir, mental health, as well as her natural desire to “pop off”, for lack of a better phrase, makes her fascinating to me, but also someone who I feel for - someone endearing beyond belief. As an HIV case manager (one of my current positions), we’re meant to look at people where they are - not where they’ve been (and getting back there), or some fantasy idea of who/where we think they should be. Our work is people-centered, and engaging every part of someone’s being is how we build our relationships, realizing that others’ ambitions, desires, and priorities can all differ. This is the lens that I’ve always viewed Azealia through - though long before I began that work in mid-2014, perhaps informed by my relationships with people I’ve seen struggle with a barrage of their own burdens in my personal life, while also having to balance being my own person getting through this world. Being human isn’t easy; living with stigmas isn’t easy; being demonized before you’re even born for who you don’t even know that you’re going to be is fucking hard, too. That’s the world Azealia’s had to live in - alongside the crossing of all those facets of her life, her personality, her past - all while in the public eye. She’s gone from someone who was literally wide-eyed, razor-sharp intense at 19/20 when she began, to now someone at 26 trying their best to confront their own pains and baggage, while pushing their world further ahead. Azealia now today, to me, is someone trying their hardest in earnest to be poised, patient, (though still a bit quick-tongued), and better at managing all of the things buzzing around her. At some point, if we get new music, great. But until then I want her to be safe, stay safe, and to continue to focus on rebuilding herself. For all intents and purposes, that seems to be the trajectory for now, and for that, I’m glad; I’ve already gotten one of the most brilliant debut albums of all time.
Going forward... I don’t know what the future holds for Azealia, and I’ve learned it’s best to have few expectations at times; maybe even fewer hopes. All I know is that in many ways, she’s won. Things could have taken a much different form after 2016, but in her own fashion, she’s begun down the path to ensuring that the opposite becomes her truth. She’s signed a new record deal already a month into 2018, and has teased the final video (!!!!!!) for “Soda” just today:
So hopefully this is only the start of things to come. No matter what though, I’ll be standing by, ever eager, and dedicated to digesting all that she has to offer. I smile thinking of who Azealia is now, and I get a little nostalgic and warm thinking of where she can and will go. We really don’t deserve all that she is, but I’m lucky to have her all the same. She's quite possibly everything to me.
May she receive all the good that’s ever meant for her.
xoxo
@Mr.Arroz
@Mr.Arroz you just get it.
Thank god I have a fellow Azealia stan on here because it isn't easy. One again another amazing, heart-felt, articulate write up.
Side note: I'm praying the album truly does come in March because I cannot wait for Anna Wigtour to wash up on these shores.
Diiiiiaaamoooonds and dreeeeeaaams come truuue for giiirrrls like meeeee
NOW I'M FEELING LOVE BABE I REALLY KNOWDiiiiiaaamoooonds and dreeeeeaaams come truuue for giiirrrls like meeeee
THAT YOUR LOVE IS ENOUGH AND I'M SO LUCKY IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
(FEELING LOVE BABE)
I'M FEELING LOVE
#2
Azealia Banks
Broke with Expensive Taste
Album Average
8.534
Our final statistics for Broke with Expensive Taste:
Highest average: 9.625 (@He)
Lowest average: 6.438 (@Trouble in Paradise)
My average: 9.219
Top 5:
1. @He - 9.625
2. @soratami - 9.438
3. @Solenciennes - 9.406
4. @Sanctuary - 9.375
5. @constantino - 9.313
Bottom 5:
1. @Trouble in Paradise - 6.438
2. @ufint - 7.031
3. @A&E - 7.657
4. @CorgiCorgiCorgi - 7.813
5. @TRAVVV / @Sprockrooster - 7.875
Summary:
Where do I begin that doesn’t leave me as sensitive as the write-up for “212”, our winning song? Azealia Banks is probably the most polarizing figure in modern-day pop music, likely beating out even Kanye West himself - while simultaneously being one of the freshest, most talented artists to grace the industry since her rise to fame in 2011. And despite probably being my favorite woman in this entire rate, I won’t shy away from the multitude of controversies that have defined her career, and led to where she currently sits musically and artistically. It’s probably the most dynamic story that I have to tell here.
Azealia Amanda Banks was born in late May 1991 in NYC, later raised by a single mother with two older sisters in Harlem - a household that she has later described as abusive - both physically and verbally. She attended LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts at 16 - the same school that once opened its doors to Liza Minelli, Nicki Minaj, Robert De Niro, and a host of others - before releasing her first song, “Gimme a Chance” (its earlist incarnation) on MySpace in November 2008, as Miss Bank$ (after signing with an agent and a period of unsuccessful television show auditions). It was during this period that Azealia states that she would “[message] Diplo every day for two months” until he finally paid her mind and declared an intention to sign her, before XL Recordings snapped her up instead. Next began nearly a year of quiet for Azealia, who received little mentorship and development as an artist. Shortly thereafter, she was off XL and back on her own, this time using her birth name as the name that she would use for later and present releases.
After leaving XL in London and returning to North America, Azealia spent time in Montreal, utilizing Youtube to share her demos, which included “L8R”, and “Slow Hands” (some of the first tracks that I heard from her after her debut single). When her Canadian visa expired, she made her back to New York City, eventually working as a stripper in Queens to make sure her bills were paid - described by Azealia as a low point herself, though it only lasted two weeks, as it was then that another one of her uploaded tracks would later explode in the music scene, and take her on the path that she’s currently traveling now.
In September 2011, “212” was released as a free download from website, eventually finding its way throughout the ’Net, blowing up in what seemingly felt like an overnight phenomenon; the song would officially be released digitally three months later, the same month where it was announced that she’d be on “Shady Love”, a track from the then-upcoming LP from the Scissor Sisters. More tracks would pop up in the following months, including “Bambi”, and “NEEDSSUMLUV (SXLND)”, as well as reports that she was working closely with Paul Epworth on her debut, as well as spending time with Thierry Mugler and other prominent names in the fashion world. Things were quickly reversing themselves for Azealia, and public desire for a long-form release was building day by day.
2012 would bring two major releases from Azealia - first, the 1991 EP in late May, affectionately titled for her birth date. Featuring four tracks (including “212”), it was released to widespread critical acclaim, racking up a score of 84 from Metacritic, with visuals prepped for each of its songs:
Next came the Fantasea mixtape, originally titled FANTASTIC, officially landing on July 11, 2012, after slight upload issues on Azealia’s end (y'all remember that?!). Preceded by four of its tracks being released on Soundcloud (“Jumanji, “Aquababe”, “Nathan”, and “Neptune”), Fantasea (while a mixtape), was the world’s first taste of Azealia’s talent in a long-play format - sitting at 19 tracks long. It also housed what was to be a new single release, “Esta Noche”, produced by Munchi, but later cancelled due to producer interference over its sample. I remember JAMMING to the mixtape that summer, the year after college graduation, and finally landing my first professional office job and my own apartment. It seemed like Azealia was on the right path with her career, something I felt we somehow had in common. But it really wasn’t long after she debuted that the world got a huge taste of the other side of Azealia, outside of her music, behavior heavily influenced by the loss of her father at two, the abusive household maintained by her mother, as well as existing in a world built upon and sustained by misogynoir. In waiting for her debut album, which would finally find its way online in late 2014, over three years after the release of “2012”, Azealia’s trajectory as an artist would include festivals, fashion shows, music videos, music eeking out here, but also - mad beefs, in a way that was funny at first, but would quickly became almost completely self-destructive.
Some summaries:
http://www.complex.com/music/2014/06/a-history-of-azealia-banks-twitter-beefs/banks-vs-lady-gaga
http://fasterlouder.junkee.com/an-a-z-of-azealia-banks-best-beefs/844419
http://www.mtv.com/news/1699732/azealia-banks-beef-history/
And in a period where music was ultimately considered to be a GODSEND, it’s hard for me to even trace a solid timeline on all the shit that she got herself involved in. If any of you participants would like to give it a try, be my welcome guest...you won’t be getting it from me! In any case tho, after “212”, Azealia became much more known for her beefs than her beats, and 2012-basically now was littered with moments of sheer messiness and lowkey embarrassment. But as a stan, I hung on, because I believed in her talent, but also because, in many ways, I saw much of the struggle that many of the women in my life endured, and I knew there was more to the story than how others would prefer to interpret it to me. I vowed to stick by her, because her music has always been high-quality, but her story was also compelling. And the forthcoming music would only prove me right.
2013 brought tracks meant for Broke with Expensive Taste, including “Yung Rapunxel” and “ATM Jam”, which later was shelved from the LP (thank GOD). 2014 itself was the major turning point, as BWET was finally released November after Azealia parted ways with UMG with the full masters/rights to her work made with them. Broke with Expensive Taste was suprise-released on November 7th, 2014, almost three years from the release of “212”, which made its tracklist as its fifth track. After that came her Hot 97 interview, which went nearly as viral as “212” back in 2011:
An interview that I think, for many people, served as a turning point with Azealia - whether for good or bad, even for those that had stuck by her after her previous beefs. Offering her thoughts on the industry, her space within it, as well as overall society and its handling of race in modern-day times, Azealia was equally upbeat and comical as she was explosively intimate and open with her emotions to much of her time in the limelight.
And so many of the rest of the industry and those watching it had their own words too:
and even more:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...a-azealia-banks-hip-hop-appropriation-problem
https://jezebel.com/azealia-banks-explains-her-iggy-beef-in-this-sad-fascin-1672876094
And I guess that’s where this summary/write-up then becomes a bit less linear than it's been with the other final summaries here (I will of course do my best to bring us back up to 2018 in a moment). Azealia for me, perhaps maybe as much as only Kelela here too, has the most shades of me within her, or maybe I mean that the other way around…? On Popjustice, in ways that I’ve come to notice myself over the years, and as many of you also already know… I’m not afraid to speak my mind and call something out on sight - or, as one of my PJ IRL friends says, “give the girls fever”. I’ve slowly learned to be a bit more measured in my responses, but a need to give voice to plenty of the things that should be discussed, but instead are brushed over or whispered for fear of disturbing the expected or the status quo, has always re-informed my approach to communicating with others. Sometimes it’s about cutting the bullshit and foregoing the niceties, two strategies that I wholeheartedly support still now, which I highly doubt will change as I grow older. Much of my reasoning for building this rate and going through all the energy that it required was because of Azealia, and specifically the story that she first hinted at, and then fully disclosed with “Soda”. Like I mentioned in the introduction to the rate on page one:
"As a young bisexual man, raised among seven siblings in a hugely diverse family (Puerto Rican, Black, Choctaw, Indian, Mexican, of varying religious and linguistic backgrounds), whose formative years were spent with Black aunts, grandmothers, cousins, and most importantly, his Black mother, most of my journey in music has begun, and persisted with - the presence of Black women."
Growing up, I watched many moments that many of these women, often raising us as single mothers, had to put up with, and in them, it was almost impossible to not draw lines to the struggles that Azealia has mentioned in “Soda” and other spaces. As Malcolm X once famously stated:
Which demonstrates the crux of this rate, of the experience of Black women, of misogynoir itself. Black women exist at the intersection of two incredibly oppressive social constructs: race, and gender. In a world intoxicated with male and white privilege, driven by the concepts of sexism and white supremacy, women of color, but specifically Black women stand at the crossing of two incredibly unfortunate burdens. And it’s the manifestation of that hybrid system, misogynoir, which unfortunately has been present in all of the dealings, professionally and personally, that Azealia has been involved in since her debut, but especially within some of her more extreme moments since her album’s release.
She appeared in Playboy in early 2015, and it was later announced in May that she would make her acting debut in RZA’s Coco, which was re-titled Love Beats Rhymes upon its release in late 2017. 2015 also brought incidents on a Delta flight in Los Angeles; Azealia ending up under investigation by that city’s police department; and an arrest in NYC after a scuffle with a female security guard. 2016 however, would prove to much worse: there was a run-in with Sarah Palin, an online feud with 14 year-old actress Skai Jackson, an endorsement of Trump (which she would later retract) and racially-fucked up comments about Zayn Malik. Her Twitter was suspended, and her appearance at a music festival was cancelled (I'm sure there's more that I'm blanking on). But of all events, it would be the one with RZA and Russell Crowe that would make the largest mark, following Azealia into 2017, which you can read a bit of below. I’m too exhausted to re-run how painful that time was for AZ:
http://www.thefader.com/2017/10/18/rza-russell-crowe-spat-at-azealia-banks-interview
https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/rza-finally-admits-russell-crowe-did-spat-on-azealia-ba-1819654613
But ultimately time would reveal that Azealia’s side of the story had maintained itself, never faltering or changing in its time in the media. And it’s only my imagination that can offer me any understanding of how heavy and hurt that how ordeal must have left her. Having openly documented her relationship with mental health, specifically bi-polar disorder, and her interactions with treatment, the incident RZA as well as her other pitfalls in 2016, and the media’s pushback as well as silencing of her claims, were all emblematic of the reality that misogynoir creates for Black women, but specifically Azealia in the narrative here. Shit was fucking harrowing, speaking as someone only watching from afar. In any case, however, more of 2017 seemed to be on the up and up for her finally again:
Azealia would release music in 2017, some of the first since it was revealed during 2015 that she was unable to do so until March 2016. That month brought a mixtape named ****-Z, which was released to mixed reviews. “Chi Chi” followed in June 2017, as well as “Escapades”, which was set to lead her follow-up to her first mixtape, titled Fantasea II: The Second Wave, which is now promised for a 2018 release. ****-Z was re-released to digital music stores in July. Late 2017 then offered perhaps the biggest turn since the darker days of 2015/2016:
Azealia returned to touring, finally, allowing me being able to see her live after six whole years of stanning. Love Beats Rhymes was also finally released, with a variety of reviews remarking on Azealia’s performance, seen by many as its strongest element. (ddddd I’m lowkey tired of writing at this point, but let me carry on…) “Icy Colors Change”, a holiday demo was released to Soundcloud, and Azealia openly went around the industry, attempting to make amends for many of the beefs and run-in’s of her past. Her career may never be at the heights of her “212” fame again, but as of January 2018, she’s hustled so much in these last few months to re-direct so much of the pain and hurt that she’s experienced in her brief six + years as a celebrity and a musician in the spotlight.
I think what I most admire about Azealia is her perseverance; her drive, too. Music runs through her veins, but aside from that - she’s a natural star and a masterful creative force. Her collisions with misogynoir, mental health, as well as her natural desire to “pop off”, for lack of a better phrase, makes her fascinating to me, but also someone who I feel for - someone endearing beyond belief. As an HIV case manager (one of my current positions), we’re meant to look at people where they are - not where they’ve been (and getting back there), or some fantasy idea of who/where we think they should be. Our work is people-centered, and engaging every part of someone’s being is how we build our relationships, realizing that others’ ambitions, desires, and priorities can all differ. This is the lens that I’ve always viewed Azealia through - though long before I began that work in mid-2014, perhaps informed by my relationships with people I’ve seen struggle with a barrage of their own burdens in my personal life, while also having to balance being my own person getting through this world. Being human isn’t easy; living with stigmas isn’t easy; being demonized before you’re even born for who you don’t even know that you’re going to be is fucking hard, too. That’s the world Azealia’s had to live in - alongside the crossing of all those facets of her life, her personality, her past - all while in the public eye. She’s gone from someone who was literally wide-eyed, razor-sharp intense at 19/20 when she began, to now someone at 26 trying their best to confront their own pains and baggage, while pushing their world further ahead. Azealia now today, to me, is someone trying their hardest in earnest to be poised, patient, (though still a bit quick-tongued), and better at managing all of the things buzzing around her. At some point, if we get new music, great. But until then I want her to be safe, stay safe, and to continue to focus on rebuilding herself. For all intents and purposes, that seems to be the trajectory for now, and for that, I’m glad; I’ve already gotten one of the most brilliant debut albums of all time.
Going forward... I don’t know what the future holds for Azealia, and I’ve learned it’s best to have few expectations at times; maybe even fewer hopes. All I know is that in many ways, she’s won. Things could have taken a much different form after 2016, but in her own fashion, she’s begun down the path to ensuring that the opposite becomes her truth. She’s signed a new record deal already a month into 2018, and has teased the final video (!!!!!!) for “Soda” just today:
So hopefully this is only the start of things to come. No matter what though, I’ll be standing by, ever eager, and dedicated to digesting all that she has to offer. I smile thinking of who Azealia is now, and I get a little nostalgic and warm thinking of where she can and will go. We really don’t deserve all that she is, but I’m lucky to have her all the same. She's quite possibly everything to me.
May she receive all the good that’s ever meant for her.
xoxo
@Mr.Arroz
So much <3.
Mr.Arroz
Staff member
he/him/his
DDDDDDDDD so my iMac's hard drive failed but I used some nifty tricks (and a conveniently placed Firewire cable) and recovered all of the data (INCLUDING ALL 119 GB OF MY FUCKING MUSIC) to another drive until I get an SSD installed. So yeah girls.
Here we goooooooooooooooooo
Here we goooooooooooooooooo
@el Señor.Rice, this was an amazing rate. I'm naturally skeptical of VS rates because often it seems like a bunch of albums are retrofitted onto a "concept" but the vision and albums here worked together so cohesively. Despite steadily increasing mainstream appreciation of black female artists, there aren't a lot of places and opportunities for their appreciation in interesting ways that also generate insight about the artists and the industry; this was a fantastic counterpoint. Your personal connection to all of the albums, so wonderfully articulated, really pushed the whole thing over. You should be very proud xx
Also kii at this final Azealia tribute:
Also kii at this final Azealia tribute:
DDDDDDDDD so my iMac's hard drive failed but I used some nifty tricks (and a conveniently placed Firewire cable) and recovered all of the data (INCLUDING ALL 119 GB OF MY FUCKING MUSIC) to another drive until I get an SSD installed. So yeah girls.
Here we goooooooooooooooooo
Mr.Arroz
Staff member
he/him/his
Mr.Arroz
Staff member
he/him/his
#1
Kelela
Take Me Apart
Album Average
8.599
Our final statistics for Take Me Apart:
Highest average: 9.571 (@ohnostalgia)
Lowest average: 6.143 (@happiestgirl)
My average: 9.321
Top 5:
1. @ohnostalgia - 9.571
2. @constantino / @LE0Night / @R92 - 9.429
5. @Kuhleezi - 9.357
Bottom 5:
1. @happiestgirl - 6.143
2. @theelusivechanteuse - 7.214
3. @kermit_the_frog - 7.357
4. @Trouble in Paradise - 7.75
5. @ufint / @JamesJupiter - 8.071
Summary:
Ok, so my history with Kelela probably runs the shortest of all the women assessed here, something which I don’t mind being rather open about. Much of my critiques of her earlier work still stands for me, and I let that be known in her very thread when Take Me Apart was still due to be released. I knew very little of Kelela’s work besides finding her passingly intriguing but ultimately not someone offering a fuller body of work for me to invest in (as I’m not much one for EP’s), and feel a larger format usually allows an artist to better establish a narrative from top to bottom (kii). So it wasn’t until the opportune moment of “LMK” being as ridiculously undeniable as it was upon release, as well as Insecure featuring the LP’s opening track, in addition to me realizing that much of Kelela’s philosophies on gender, sexuality, race and a slew of other social justice-related topics, mirrored in ways the thoughts and ideas that I carry for these discussions myself, that I truly had my epiphany with her work and her approach to it. And now I can’t see myself ever turning back…
Kelela, a second-generation Ethiopian born in D.C. but raised in Gaithersburg, Maryland, made her music debut in October 2013 with CUT 4 ME, a free mixtape released to Soundcloud and Youtube, as well as a download from Fade to Mind (which you can still get here!), her label at the time. Featuring spacey, sparse, and chilled beats, CUT 4 ME was initially compared to the then-current works of SZA, Blood Orange, AlunaGeorge, Jessy Lanza, Solange, and even fka twigs, later receiving ‘Best New Music’ from Pitchfork, alongside a score of 8.3, and critical acclaim from the Guardian, too. (Its best track is “Bank Head” - IMHO). Kelela at this point looked poised to really hit the ground running after the mixtape - but, from all that I can see - she effectively disappeared, until early 2015, when the Hallucinogen EP was announced for May of that year, and preceded by “A Message”, one of the work’s six tracks.
Released just slightly over two years after CUT 4 ME, Hallucinogen landed on October 9th, 2015 (but leaked a month before), six months after her previous work was reissued, and five months after it was initially due to be released - but also at a time where her debut LP was previously promised. Featuring a tighter, more focused sound, Hallucinogen followed in its predecessor’s footsteps, receiving not only ‘Best New Music’ from Pitchfork (ddd), but an identical score of 8.3, too, and its own set of critical praise, reaching a score of 78 on Metacritic, and ‘Album of the Week’ from Stereogum. Built by a collaboration of previous producers, as well as the inclusion of individuals that would later encompass a good chunk of Take Me Apart’s contributors, Hallucinogen widened Kelela’s soundscape:
while holding intact her innate ability to pair vulnerability and emotional sensuality next to incredible warmth. In contrast to CUT 4 ME, where Kelela glided over beats provided by production teams, on Hallucinogen, she takes the reigns herself, re-centering herself, as well as her vocal, as the most prominent feature in her offerings. It’s where I began to properly pay better attention, all the while still only half-investing, as my ultimate wish was for that long-awaited LP, as many even more attentive fans were holding out for as well.
Originally promised for a spring 2016 release, then the autumn, Take Me Apart, Kelela’s long-awaited debut album was finally officially announced on July 17th, 2017, after years of intermittent features, touring, and other ventures, including:
Kelela finally addressed the topic head-on:
later following with the oft-teased album’s lead single, “LMK”, out the first of August. Kelela’s music continued the trend set two years prior with her EP, once again pushing her sound in a more concise, polished direction - but this time, paired with an even more present vocal, as well as contemporary production - harkening back to both where R&B was in the 90’s - but with a futuristic, forward-thinking touch for where it can grow to be.
At this point, I was hooked, but also just plainly intrigued. Much of who I had known Kelela to be an artist was shrouded in darkness and mystery, a facade I feel she too liked to maintain, especially as her debut album lingered somewhere in the distance, for both her, as well as her fans, desperately demanding it to be released online. It’s interesting how much more present she seems, on social media, in the press, overall, in a way that echoes her presence within her music. Take Me Apart, the singer’s first fully-realized debut, finally dropped on October 6th, 2017, and its title is both apt for the album - a journey through two relationships, through Black womanhood, through sexuality, gender, and identity, all cast through the lens of Blackness and the unique ways in which these intersections inhibit and liberate, especially when navigated and negotiated as someone who has to surmount them - but for the woman herself, baring herself in a way that her audience had not yet been granted previously. Consisting of a fourteen spellbinding tracks, narrating a range of emotions across a variety of tempos, instrumental atmospheres, and evocative lyrics, it's an album that I didn’t realize that I needed, but one that I really can’t see myself ever again being without.
I went to college from 2007 until 2011, where I graduated with a degree from the Africana Studies department, with just one other student, an Iranian woman from New York City. In the years since I’ve left school, the department has only grown and attracted more inquiring minds, especially as social movements and pushes toward Afrocentricity/Afrocentrism have fostered and expanded. As someone who grew up lighter than many of the people in my family, the product of two mixed-race families with Black heritage, in a small town that was 93% white, majoring in Africana Studies was a revelation - I took courses on the history of Black music, on Black feminism and its roots; on the African diaspora ante- and postbellum; on James Baldwin and Toni Morrison; on Jim Crow, the Great Migration - on things that my pitiful social studies classes in high school and before had end-noted and left for a brief chapter or two (all save for one Black female teacher in 8th grade that both knew my own mother, but also taught us what the textbooks wouldn’t - I’m eternally grateful for her for planting a seed that would be harvested as a young man in college). I minored in Spanish and Latinx Studies, becoming the first in my family to speak the language, as well as start on the journey I’m still on to better know my Afro-Latinidad. For the first time, I could contextualize where I came from, why I looked like I did, and the pains that my people went through. It was weird, but also warming - getting to thoroughly enjoy my coursework, while better knowing my identity in the process. This experience would forever change how I would see myself in this world.
Afrocentricity is the approach to history that combats Eurocentricity - a much more common read and offering of history through the eyes of boring, played-out white people, instead casting people of color, specifically the African diaspora, as the lead characters in their own narratives. Afrocentrism focuses on how Black peoples experience their own realities (past, present, and future) as their own storytellers, not as supporting elements to how white people have navigated the world, colonizing, enslaving, and restricting the movement of Black peoples. As I left college and began to do professional work first in Spanish for a production firm - before transferring to HIV advocacy, my education and the perspective that it equipped me with: Afrocentricity, have guided me as a case manager for my clients and colleagues. And this desire to interrogate Afrocentricity and better incorporate into it my daily dealings, as well as de-colonize how whiteness and a Eurocentric worldview can obscure the unique things present in my identity and my history. Kelela’s music, as well as that of the other women here in my rate, have inspired me in ways unexpected - to embrace the best of ourselves as Black people in a world that states explicitly and implicitly that we should see ourselves as lesser than, lesser than a majority which has always been white, wielding power and privilege that makes our histories elective and illegal, furthering how disenfranchised people of color are, while simultaneously criminalizing our histories and futures.
So let me link this back to Kelela - I promise I mentioned this all for a reason, kii. One of those reasons for her music having resonated so deeply with me is that it’s not that it’s necessarily “Black” on its surface, being outwardly and un-mistakenly political, proudly and clearly, as with “Formation”, “Cranes in the Sky”, some of Kendrick’s work, and more (forgive my lack of further examples…), but it’s how Kelela’s spoken of her own world, as having to negotiate color, sexual, gender, etc. lines rather explicitly in her day-to-day life, and then translating these moments into rather subtle, implicit messages present within her musical offerings. There’s a hyper-intellectualized approach to what might otherwise be considered mundane and cliché on Take Me Apart: at its core, it’s a pop/R&B record, with splashes of influence from a myriad of other genres, moving unapologetically to document two relationships and the transition between them. Love, sensuality, and sex dominant a wide range of pop music, but as a Black, queer, second-generation immigrant woman, Kelela’s story and voice are ones that we as consumers of art must seek out, must discover on our own time. I had to stumble upon her work, much like the other women here, as outside of Popjustice, I’d likely never have run into her material.
And, if we’re speaking honestly, because I know that I am, existing outside the lines of whiteness, heterosexuality, cisgender, and other markers of privilege and majority, is a political act in and of itself. In a world where being white, straight, and male, means your access and opportunities are infinite, to be visible and present away from those categories is an act of protest; an act of resistance. Kelela understands this too, even offering in the above Pitchfork interview, that while her work isn’t explicitly political, it is inherently so because as “a black woman, nothing that I make could ever exist outside of that experience.” Take Me Apart’s contents, as well as how it’s been depicted, promoted, and detailed by the artist herself, have been a perfect marriage of two things that much of Popjustice knows that I gravitate toward already: strong, melody-driven music, and social justice/awareness. All of the women in this rate have dealt with identity politics and navigating how social barriers have presented themselves within the context of their respective careers, all are “woke” in their own ways, but Kelela’s debut perhaps came at an opportune moment in my life: I’m leading the Latinx department at my second job as an editor-at-large, tasked with assembling Latinx stories from the diverse lanes that we inhabit, led by a supreme desire to do justice to the multitude of voices both traditionally seen and heard, and those not. On Popjustice, I often read deeply into many of the albums that I grow close to, creating my own interpretations for the themes that they depict, but with Kelela’s output… that job has almost been done for me? Kelela’s music has been a personal reminder that storytelling is not only necessary, because so many of our stories are commonly left out of the overall conversation, but that how we share our stories is just as significant - something I’ve long carried to my method of music absorption. Take Me Apart exists yes, as a record, specifying love and emotion as experienced by Kelela, but at the same time Take Me Apart is designed and propelled by Kelela’s brand of storytelling and framing, exhibiting how a Black, queer woman can intentionally disrupt the lines that society expects from her as a woman first, but as a musician too. For so long I considered what it might look like to merge openly the topics of power, social justice, and identity politics in the package of a traditionalized pop album, while also never shying away from the conversations that those topics require when in the press. Kelela has done that in a manner that I aspire to follow as an editor, as a musician myself. It’s my favorite album of the lot here because it’s an almost perfect demonstration of the musician that I want to be, fronted by someone who’s shown bravery, vulnerability, warmth, compassion, and self-belief in an insanely magnetic manner, traits that I too hope will mark my work as an editor.
It may have taken long (and surely even longer for those fans since 2013), but in the end, Kelela’s debut did what it needed to do: it proved that she could construct, edit, and tighten her work for a full-length format release - while never shying away from openly sharing her truth. It makes me all that more happy to see where she goes for album #2. And so with that being said, I’ll leave you with my favorite track from the album:
And also remind you that she’s currently touring (I hope to see her in NYC in March), and you can keep up with her on social media here.
Thanks again for your patience and participation!
Kelela
Take Me Apart
Album Average
8.599
Our final statistics for Take Me Apart:
Highest average: 9.571 (@ohnostalgia)
Lowest average: 6.143 (@happiestgirl)
My average: 9.321
Top 5:
1. @ohnostalgia - 9.571
2. @constantino / @LE0Night / @R92 - 9.429
5. @Kuhleezi - 9.357
Bottom 5:
1. @happiestgirl - 6.143
2. @theelusivechanteuse - 7.214
3. @kermit_the_frog - 7.357
4. @Trouble in Paradise - 7.75
5. @ufint / @JamesJupiter - 8.071
Summary:
Ok, so my history with Kelela probably runs the shortest of all the women assessed here, something which I don’t mind being rather open about. Much of my critiques of her earlier work still stands for me, and I let that be known in her very thread when Take Me Apart was still due to be released. I knew very little of Kelela’s work besides finding her passingly intriguing but ultimately not someone offering a fuller body of work for me to invest in (as I’m not much one for EP’s), and feel a larger format usually allows an artist to better establish a narrative from top to bottom (kii). So it wasn’t until the opportune moment of “LMK” being as ridiculously undeniable as it was upon release, as well as Insecure featuring the LP’s opening track, in addition to me realizing that much of Kelela’s philosophies on gender, sexuality, race and a slew of other social justice-related topics, mirrored in ways the thoughts and ideas that I carry for these discussions myself, that I truly had my epiphany with her work and her approach to it. And now I can’t see myself ever turning back…
Kelela, a second-generation Ethiopian born in D.C. but raised in Gaithersburg, Maryland, made her music debut in October 2013 with CUT 4 ME, a free mixtape released to Soundcloud and Youtube, as well as a download from Fade to Mind (which you can still get here!), her label at the time. Featuring spacey, sparse, and chilled beats, CUT 4 ME was initially compared to the then-current works of SZA, Blood Orange, AlunaGeorge, Jessy Lanza, Solange, and even fka twigs, later receiving ‘Best New Music’ from Pitchfork, alongside a score of 8.3, and critical acclaim from the Guardian, too. (Its best track is “Bank Head” - IMHO). Kelela at this point looked poised to really hit the ground running after the mixtape - but, from all that I can see - she effectively disappeared, until early 2015, when the Hallucinogen EP was announced for May of that year, and preceded by “A Message”, one of the work’s six tracks.
Released just slightly over two years after CUT 4 ME, Hallucinogen landed on October 9th, 2015 (but leaked a month before), six months after her previous work was reissued, and five months after it was initially due to be released - but also at a time where her debut LP was previously promised. Featuring a tighter, more focused sound, Hallucinogen followed in its predecessor’s footsteps, receiving not only ‘Best New Music’ from Pitchfork (ddd), but an identical score of 8.3, too, and its own set of critical praise, reaching a score of 78 on Metacritic, and ‘Album of the Week’ from Stereogum. Built by a collaboration of previous producers, as well as the inclusion of individuals that would later encompass a good chunk of Take Me Apart’s contributors, Hallucinogen widened Kelela’s soundscape:
while holding intact her innate ability to pair vulnerability and emotional sensuality next to incredible warmth. In contrast to CUT 4 ME, where Kelela glided over beats provided by production teams, on Hallucinogen, she takes the reigns herself, re-centering herself, as well as her vocal, as the most prominent feature in her offerings. It’s where I began to properly pay better attention, all the while still only half-investing, as my ultimate wish was for that long-awaited LP, as many even more attentive fans were holding out for as well.
Originally promised for a spring 2016 release, then the autumn, Take Me Apart, Kelela’s long-awaited debut album was finally officially announced on July 17th, 2017, after years of intermittent features, touring, and other ventures, including:
Kelela finally addressed the topic head-on:
later following with the oft-teased album’s lead single, “LMK”, out the first of August. Kelela’s music continued the trend set two years prior with her EP, once again pushing her sound in a more concise, polished direction - but this time, paired with an even more present vocal, as well as contemporary production - harkening back to both where R&B was in the 90’s - but with a futuristic, forward-thinking touch for where it can grow to be.
At this point, I was hooked, but also just plainly intrigued. Much of who I had known Kelela to be an artist was shrouded in darkness and mystery, a facade I feel she too liked to maintain, especially as her debut album lingered somewhere in the distance, for both her, as well as her fans, desperately demanding it to be released online. It’s interesting how much more present she seems, on social media, in the press, overall, in a way that echoes her presence within her music. Take Me Apart, the singer’s first fully-realized debut, finally dropped on October 6th, 2017, and its title is both apt for the album - a journey through two relationships, through Black womanhood, through sexuality, gender, and identity, all cast through the lens of Blackness and the unique ways in which these intersections inhibit and liberate, especially when navigated and negotiated as someone who has to surmount them - but for the woman herself, baring herself in a way that her audience had not yet been granted previously. Consisting of a fourteen spellbinding tracks, narrating a range of emotions across a variety of tempos, instrumental atmospheres, and evocative lyrics, it's an album that I didn’t realize that I needed, but one that I really can’t see myself ever again being without.
I went to college from 2007 until 2011, where I graduated with a degree from the Africana Studies department, with just one other student, an Iranian woman from New York City. In the years since I’ve left school, the department has only grown and attracted more inquiring minds, especially as social movements and pushes toward Afrocentricity/Afrocentrism have fostered and expanded. As someone who grew up lighter than many of the people in my family, the product of two mixed-race families with Black heritage, in a small town that was 93% white, majoring in Africana Studies was a revelation - I took courses on the history of Black music, on Black feminism and its roots; on the African diaspora ante- and postbellum; on James Baldwin and Toni Morrison; on Jim Crow, the Great Migration - on things that my pitiful social studies classes in high school and before had end-noted and left for a brief chapter or two (all save for one Black female teacher in 8th grade that both knew my own mother, but also taught us what the textbooks wouldn’t - I’m eternally grateful for her for planting a seed that would be harvested as a young man in college). I minored in Spanish and Latinx Studies, becoming the first in my family to speak the language, as well as start on the journey I’m still on to better know my Afro-Latinidad. For the first time, I could contextualize where I came from, why I looked like I did, and the pains that my people went through. It was weird, but also warming - getting to thoroughly enjoy my coursework, while better knowing my identity in the process. This experience would forever change how I would see myself in this world.
Afrocentricity is the approach to history that combats Eurocentricity - a much more common read and offering of history through the eyes of boring, played-out white people, instead casting people of color, specifically the African diaspora, as the lead characters in their own narratives. Afrocentrism focuses on how Black peoples experience their own realities (past, present, and future) as their own storytellers, not as supporting elements to how white people have navigated the world, colonizing, enslaving, and restricting the movement of Black peoples. As I left college and began to do professional work first in Spanish for a production firm - before transferring to HIV advocacy, my education and the perspective that it equipped me with: Afrocentricity, have guided me as a case manager for my clients and colleagues. And this desire to interrogate Afrocentricity and better incorporate into it my daily dealings, as well as de-colonize how whiteness and a Eurocentric worldview can obscure the unique things present in my identity and my history. Kelela’s music, as well as that of the other women here in my rate, have inspired me in ways unexpected - to embrace the best of ourselves as Black people in a world that states explicitly and implicitly that we should see ourselves as lesser than, lesser than a majority which has always been white, wielding power and privilege that makes our histories elective and illegal, furthering how disenfranchised people of color are, while simultaneously criminalizing our histories and futures.
So let me link this back to Kelela - I promise I mentioned this all for a reason, kii. One of those reasons for her music having resonated so deeply with me is that it’s not that it’s necessarily “Black” on its surface, being outwardly and un-mistakenly political, proudly and clearly, as with “Formation”, “Cranes in the Sky”, some of Kendrick’s work, and more (forgive my lack of further examples…), but it’s how Kelela’s spoken of her own world, as having to negotiate color, sexual, gender, etc. lines rather explicitly in her day-to-day life, and then translating these moments into rather subtle, implicit messages present within her musical offerings. There’s a hyper-intellectualized approach to what might otherwise be considered mundane and cliché on Take Me Apart: at its core, it’s a pop/R&B record, with splashes of influence from a myriad of other genres, moving unapologetically to document two relationships and the transition between them. Love, sensuality, and sex dominant a wide range of pop music, but as a Black, queer, second-generation immigrant woman, Kelela’s story and voice are ones that we as consumers of art must seek out, must discover on our own time. I had to stumble upon her work, much like the other women here, as outside of Popjustice, I’d likely never have run into her material.
And, if we’re speaking honestly, because I know that I am, existing outside the lines of whiteness, heterosexuality, cisgender, and other markers of privilege and majority, is a political act in and of itself. In a world where being white, straight, and male, means your access and opportunities are infinite, to be visible and present away from those categories is an act of protest; an act of resistance. Kelela understands this too, even offering in the above Pitchfork interview, that while her work isn’t explicitly political, it is inherently so because as “a black woman, nothing that I make could ever exist outside of that experience.” Take Me Apart’s contents, as well as how it’s been depicted, promoted, and detailed by the artist herself, have been a perfect marriage of two things that much of Popjustice knows that I gravitate toward already: strong, melody-driven music, and social justice/awareness. All of the women in this rate have dealt with identity politics and navigating how social barriers have presented themselves within the context of their respective careers, all are “woke” in their own ways, but Kelela’s debut perhaps came at an opportune moment in my life: I’m leading the Latinx department at my second job as an editor-at-large, tasked with assembling Latinx stories from the diverse lanes that we inhabit, led by a supreme desire to do justice to the multitude of voices both traditionally seen and heard, and those not. On Popjustice, I often read deeply into many of the albums that I grow close to, creating my own interpretations for the themes that they depict, but with Kelela’s output… that job has almost been done for me? Kelela’s music has been a personal reminder that storytelling is not only necessary, because so many of our stories are commonly left out of the overall conversation, but that how we share our stories is just as significant - something I’ve long carried to my method of music absorption. Take Me Apart exists yes, as a record, specifying love and emotion as experienced by Kelela, but at the same time Take Me Apart is designed and propelled by Kelela’s brand of storytelling and framing, exhibiting how a Black, queer woman can intentionally disrupt the lines that society expects from her as a woman first, but as a musician too. For so long I considered what it might look like to merge openly the topics of power, social justice, and identity politics in the package of a traditionalized pop album, while also never shying away from the conversations that those topics require when in the press. Kelela has done that in a manner that I aspire to follow as an editor, as a musician myself. It’s my favorite album of the lot here because it’s an almost perfect demonstration of the musician that I want to be, fronted by someone who’s shown bravery, vulnerability, warmth, compassion, and self-belief in an insanely magnetic manner, traits that I too hope will mark my work as an editor.
It may have taken long (and surely even longer for those fans since 2013), but in the end, Kelela’s debut did what it needed to do: it proved that she could construct, edit, and tighten her work for a full-length format release - while never shying away from openly sharing her truth. It makes me all that more happy to see where she goes for album #2. And so with that being said, I’ll leave you with my favorite track from the album:
And also remind you that she’s currently touring (I hope to see her in NYC in March), and you can keep up with her on social media here.
Thanks again for your patience and participation!
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